The Right Fit for the Wrong Reasons: Real Business Cycle in an Oil-Dependent Economy

Miguel Santos (miguelangel.santos@barcelonagse.eu)

No 58, Growth Lab Working Papers from Harvard's Growth Lab

Abstract: Venezuela is an oil-dependent economy subject to large exogenous shocks, with a rigid labor market. These features go straight at the heart of two weaknesses of real business cycle (RBC) theory widely reported in the literature: Neither shocks are volatile enough nor real salaries are sufficiently flexible as required by the RBC framework to replicate the behavior of the economy. We calibrate a basic RBC model and compare a set of relevant statistics from RBC-simulated time series with actual data for Venezuela and the benchmark case of the United States (1950-2008). In spite of Venezuela being one of the most heavily intervened economies in the world, RBC-simulated series provide a surprisingly good fit when it comes to the non-oil sector of the economy, and in particular for labor markets. Large restrictions on dismissal and widespread minimum (nominal) wage put all the burden of adjustment on prices; which translate into highly volatile real wages.

Keywords: Macroeconomics; RBC; oil shocks; labor markets; Venezuela (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E10 E32 O47 O54 Q32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-09
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Related works:
Journal Article: The Right Fit for the Wrong Reasons: Real Business Cycle in an Oil-dependent Economy (2016)
Working Paper: The Right Fit for the Wrong Reasons: Real Business Cycle in an Oil-Dependent Economy (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:glh:wpfacu:58

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